OK, sure, on a calendar, January 1 is New Year’s. But really, from a more earthy standpoint, isn’t spring the start of the new year? For athletes, it’s often the start of serious training for the competitive season. (Plus, April 15 with taxes? Heck yeah, the day after that I’m breathing a sigh of relief that that’s done.) Sure, it’s cheating a little to have New Year’s in January, then again in spring, then again in September at the start of the school year, but if it gets you energized, I say use whatever works! For me, I often crave an excuse to do a reset and wipe the slate clean.
This month, I started thinking about my word of the year for 2020, and while I’ve been focusing on that and my others goals, as I come to the end of our long stay in Girona, packed with clinics and camps, I’m starting to think about what’s next. I have a fairly obvious reset coming, since we’ll be getting back home and moving back into our rented out place, so there’s an easy reset of a move. But in past years, I haven’t had that, but this time of year still feels like it needs a little push to really click into gear.
Ultimately, for most endurance athletes, spring is the start of the new season. It really should be a great time to reset and refocus, to double down on our goals.
If you’re anything like me and always thinking ‘I’ll set this as a resolution… next year,” then it might be a good idea to think about spring like I am this year. Whether you re-resolve, un-resolve, start resolving for the first time in the year, use the start of the new season to make a change.
One thing I’m doing to keep pushing that constant evolution and improvement along is designating words of the month—not in a super intensive way and I won’t write about them here. They’re more small, personal reminders of what each month’s new focus should be.
Now that we’re out of a month of coaching and have four fairly hectic weeks coming up, for example, I’m thinking about the word COLLECTED (yep, the first word of the year I ever did, back in 2017). It works because the goal for March is to coach an amazing women’s gravel camp, stay caught up on writing assignments and personal writing projects and other freelance work, do school talks, get back home, and get moved into our place and sorted out there so that April can start strong, while keeping the base fitness I’ve built in the last two months. It’s a tall order, and it would be easy to let it overwhelm me, and that’s why it’s so important that this month, the focus is on remaining calm, cool and collected.
